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Nita Farahany Interview on Human Germline Modification: Defining A Road Forward

February 1, 2021 / By / 1 Comment
Nita-Farahany

The topic of heritable human genetic modification has been heating up recently. Prominent scientists, ethicists, and legal scholars have being weighing in, and there is a range of attitudes. Some favor a complete, moratorium including even lab work, while on the other end of the spectrum there are those who have a more liberal perspective. Many …

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Stanford Human Germline Modification Meeting: Medicine, Science, Ethics, & Law

February 1, 2021 / By
Greely_Hank

Last Thursday I participated in a meeting at Stanford Law School on human germline genetic modification hosted by Hank Greely (pictured at left), Professor of Law and Genetics at Stanford. The meeting was entitled, “Human Germline Modification: Medicine, Science, Ethics, and Law”. The panel included in addition to Hank and me, the following speakers: Marcy Darnovsky, Executive Director of …

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The big blind spot on CRISPR for human embryo editing: PGD

February 1, 2021 / By / 10 Comments
blind-spot

There is a big old blind spot in the discussion over germline gene editing in humans: preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). There’s been a lot of talk in 2015 about worries over how gene editing technology such as CRISPR might be used prematurely in the clinic in an unsafe or unethical manner in humans in the …

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Was Fujifilm CDI acquisition a good move by the companies?

February 1, 2021 / By / 4 Comments
Fujifilm-Logo

The big stem cell news already this week is the acquisition by Fujifilm of Cellular Dynamics International (CDI) for a whopping $307 million dollars or about $16.50 per CDI share. You can read the press release here. Update: The entity is now known as Fujifilm Cellular Dynamics. It was less than two years ago that CDI did …

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Challenge of Yamanaka Patent by BioGatekeeper Fails

February 1, 2021 / By / 15 Comments
BioGatekeeper

The still mysterious BioGatekeeper had challenged Yamanaka’s IPS cell patent claiming that it was obvious. The potential implications were huge given the commercial interest in translating IPS cell technology. For background see here, here, and here. There’s pretty much zero information on BioGatekeeper otherwise. Despite the potential seriousness of this patent challenge, just a few days …

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The Lake Wobegon Effect in Science: Where Every Paper is Above Average

February 1, 2021 / By / 5 Comments
Lake-Wobegon

Garrison Keillor’s NPR show A Prairie Home Companion would sometimes report from a small fictional town call Lake Wobegon. Frankly, I found that show really boring, but I always chuckled when I heard this line: “Well, that’s the news from Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and …

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FDA to Put Mushrooming Fat Stem Cell Clinics on Crash Diet?

February 1, 2021 / By / 28 Comments
Stembucks, stem cell cartoon

Is it the beginning of the end for dubious American clinics that sell transplants of unproven and non-FDA approved fat stem cell injections? As the year of 2014 was winding down, the FDA issued two key new draft guidances (see here and here) that could prove to be crash diets for these burgeoning fat stem cell clinics. (Update: As of …

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